‘Ma’am, it was an accident. Wilhelmina is distraught—will you not find a kind word for her?’
‘I will not,’ retorted Lady Frances, shaking out her skirts. ‘The child is wild to a fault. And I lay the blame firmly at your door, Miss Wrenn.’
Juliana fought down her indignation. She said quietly, ‘But to imply that Minna was responsible for the death of her mother—’
‘It is no more or less than the truth,’ came the terse reply. ‘Everyone knows that Harriet died giving birth to that child.’
‘You cannot blame Wilhelmina for that.’
Lady Frances drew herself up. ‘And why not? Would you tell me that Major Collingham would not rather have his wife than that…that brat?’
Juliana gasped. ‘Madam,’ she said, ‘that is an unjust and heartless thing to say.’
‘How dare you criticise me!’ Lady Frances’s face flushed with anger.
Juliana saw that Gwen had gone across to sit beside Wilhelmina, who was sobbing uncontrollably. She tried again.
‘Pray consider, ma’am. Will you not tell Wilhelmina that you did not mean those words? Will you not retract?’
‘I will not. Let me remind you that you are nothing more than a servant here.’
‘I am governess to these children,’ retorted Juliana. ‘Their welfare is my first concern and I cannot allow you to upset them so.’
‘You cannot allow—’ Lady Frances stared at her. ‘Why, you impertinent hussy. How dare you speak to me in that way!’
‘I do dare, madam,’ flashed Juliana, thoroughly roused, ‘And I also dare to warn you that your callous words will not endear you to these children.’
Lady Frances went pale with fury. She lifted her riding crop. Juliana raised her chin, daring her to strike. After a long, tense silence, Lady Frances lowered her arm.
‘Such behaviour is not to be tolerated,’ she snapped. ‘You and your family will leave Blackthorpe immediately. I—’
‘What is going on here?’
They had not heard the Major come in. He strode into the room, still dressed for riding in his brown coat, buckskins and muddy top boots.
‘What the devil is the meaning of this?’ he demanded. ‘I heard your voices from across the hall.’
‘Damon, thank heaven! This—this creature—’ Lady Frances pointed to Juliana ‘—has had the effrontery to criticise me—me! You cannot allow such behaviour in a servant.’
‘Certainly not, if it is true.’
Juliana had walked across to the table, but she turned her head now, her anger barely concealed.
‘Oh, yes, it is true,’ she said. She took Amy’s hand. ‘Come, you too, Thomas. We must pack.’
She did not look at the Major, but swept out of the room with her head held high.
‘Are we really leaving?’ asked Amy, running to keep up with her. ‘Where will we go?’
‘I neither know nor care.’ Juliana strode up the stairs and into the bedroom where she dragged her trunk into the middle of the room.
‘But we have no money,’ said Thomas.
‘Then we shall walk into Burnley and I will take a post as a chambermaid if I must!’ She sighed, her shoulders sagging. ‘No, no, that is anger speaking. I shall seek out Mr Brasher and ask him for the wages I am due.’ She looked down at the two anxious faces. ‘You must not worry, my loves. We are no worse off than when we applied to Cousin Pettigrew.’
‘But we are hundreds of miles away from London.’
‘So we are, Tom. We must make a new life for ourselves. Is that not exciting?’
The words sounded hollow, even to Juliana. She shrugged, and set her mind to packing. There was a knock at the door. The Major came in without ceremony.
‘Miss Wrenn, I would like to speak to you. Privately.’
She continued to throw the children’s clothes into the trunk. ‘You can have nothing to say that the children should not hear.’
From the corner of her eye she observed the tightening of his jaw. He addressed Thomas.
‘Will you take Amy outside for a while, if you please? You will find the girls having luncheon in the breakfast room.’
Juliana looked up. ‘You will stay where you are, Thomas! We will take nothing further from this house.’
‘Now you are being foolish in the extreme,’ retorted the Major. ‘Go along, Thomas; Giles is out with Sir Richard, so you will find only Gwen and Minna there, no one else,’ he added with a meaningful glance.
He waited until Thomas had taken Amy out of the room and closed the door behind him. Even then he did not speak, but stood watching Juliana as she continued to pack.
‘Gwen told me what happened.’ He waited. ‘Will you not talk to me?’
‘There is nothing to say.’
‘There is much to say! I understand Frances said Minna was to blame for her mother’s death.’
‘Yes.’
‘It is not true and I said as much to Minna before I came upstairs.’ He walked over to the window. ‘I have also done my best to reassure her—and Gwen, too—that much as I loved their mother, I would not give them up now. They are my world.’
‘That was kind.’
‘It is the truth.’ He cleared his throat. ‘Frances has gone. I—we decided we should not suit.’
Juliana found her hands were shaking as she dropped another pile of clothes into the trunk. She said nothing, mechanically folding Tom’s shirts and putting them away. After a short pause he continued.
‘The—sacrifices I have been prepared to make have all been for the sake of my children. It has been forcibly borne in upon me that to marry Lady Frances might provide for their future security, but it would scarcely make them happy.’
She closed her eyes.
‘Well? Have you nothing to say to that?’
She shook her head, her throat too tight with unshed, angry tears for her to speak. He turned towards her.
‘Damnation, woman, will you not answer me?’
She continued to bundle her clothes into the trunk. ‘It is not my place to offer an opinion.’
‘Then it will be the first time since we met that you have not done so!’
‘I am merely a governess—’
He swore roundly, making her wince. ‘You have never been merely a governess and you know it! You are a most outspoken and opinionated young woman!’
She threw back her head at that, incensed. ‘And if I am, it was because I found it necessary to combat your arrogance!’
He continued as if she had not spoken. ‘You are headstrong, hot at hand, damnably independent and you have become quite indispensable to my family.’
She froze.
‘Juliana, please don’t go.’
She swung round, unwilling to face him. Her anger had carried her thus far; now the contrition in his voice confused her.
‘You—you cannot want me to stay,’ she murmured, her voice barely above a whisper. ‘I—I stabbed you.’
‘A scratch, and nothing more than I deserved.’ She felt his hands on her shoulders, the heat of his body close behind her. She resisted the impulse to lean back against him. ‘Ju—I have been such a fool. Can you forgive me for putting you through all this? Can you…love me?’
‘I will always love you,’ she whispered.
Damon gave a deep sigh. His breath was on her neck. He turned her round and gathered her into his arms. She leaned against him, her cheek resting against the rough wool of his coat. For a long time they remained thus, standing in each other’s arms, and Juliana thought she would ask for no greater happiness.
‘So you will stay?’ His words rumbled against her cheek and she smiled into his coat.
‘Yes.’
He tilted up her face and kissed her. ‘Unpack, then. This is your home now. For ever.’ He threw up his head. ‘Now what the devil is that racket?’
From the stairs came the sounds of running feet and loud voices. Damon opened the door and stepped out, almost colliding with a chambermaid.
�
��Beggin’ your pardon, sir. There’s a coach arrived.’
‘A coach? What the devil is this now?’ He strode away and Juliana followed, bemused.
The long passage to the gallery echoed faintly with the sounds of voices from the hall below. The sounds became louder as they approached the stairs.
‘What the…?’
Coming to a halt behind Major Collingham, Juliana peeped around him. Below, the floor of the hall was littered with bandboxes and trunks, while a thin woman in a severe black redingote was directing the servants as they brought in even more bags. Standing quietly in the midst of this confusion was a lady in a pale-blue travelling gown. Hearing the Major’s voice, she turned and looked up, and Juliana found herself looking at the most beautiful face she had ever seen.
Chapter Twenty-One
‘Lady Ormiston, what a pleasant surprise.’
As Major Collingham descended the stairs to greet his visitor, Juliana drew back into the shadows of the gallery. The lady in the hall was a ravishing brunette with glossy ringlets peeping out from beneath her modish bonnet while the excellent cut of her travelling robe showed her figure to advantage. She had large black eyes fringed with long, curling lashes, smooth cheeks delicately flushed and a pair of red lips that had curved now into a dazzling smile.
‘Damon, my dear! You are surprised, no? I am travelling to Scotland to join Ormiston, and when I realised how close we would be to you, I ordered my driver to divert.’ The enchanting little face showed a moment’s anxiety. ‘You will not turn me away, mon ami? If it is inconvenient…’
‘Not at all,’ he said politely ‘You are very welcome, Veronique, if unexpected.’
She gave a light, tinkling laugh and cast a roguish glance at her host.
‘I was ever that, non?’ A harsh, hacking cough made her look around at the woman in the black redingote. ‘Ah, poor Sophie. Major Collingham shall tell us which rooms we are to have and then, while you unpack, we shall have a tisane prepared for you, is that not so?’ She directed a look of enquiry at Plumstead, who gave a stately bow.
‘Of course, madam.’
‘Bon.’ She looked up at the gallery. ‘But who is that little thing, hiding up there? Is it one of your children, Damon?’
He laughed.
‘Hardly. Come down, Miss Wrenn, and let me present you to Lady Ormiston. This, Veronique, is my children’s governess.’
‘Ah, and do they make your life very difficult, mademoiselle?’ asked Lady Ormiston as Juliana came down the stairs. ‘My sister and I, we were very naughty for our tutors, but perhaps Damon has little angels?’
Juliana allowed herself a faint smile. ‘They are children, madam, nothing more.’ Now she was closer she could see that Lady Ormiston was older than she first appeared, with tiny lines around her mouth and at the corners of her eyes, but these merely added character to her beauty, as did the lilting French accent.
The Major turned to Juliana. ‘It is time you went back to your charges, MissWrenn. They should have finished their luncheon by now.’ He held her eyes for a moment. ‘We will talk later.’
Juliana nodded and began to walk away. She did not look back, but as she heard Lady Ormiston’s playful tone she imagined her taking the Major’s arm and fluttering her absurdly long lashes at him.
‘Now, Damon my dear, tell me truly if I am in the way. But this is such a big house, and you must have a little room somewhere that I can use for a night or two? I require very little luxury, after all; during the Terror in Paris, I slept in a hovel on straw, you know.’
‘I am sure we can do better than that for you…’
Juliana heard the laugh in the Major’s voice. She slipped into the morning room and closed the door firmly behind her. Instead of making her way to the breakfast room in search of the children, she sank down on to one of the cushioned window seats. Her head was spinning with the events of the past few hours. It could not be much past noon, yet already she felt she had not slept for several days. She had never known such anger as she had felt for Lady Frances that morning. Even now her hands clenched tightly at the memory of her callous words to little Minna. She had been prepared to take Thomas and Amy out of the house that very hour rather than make an apology. Then, when her temper was cooling and the first threads of anxiety had started to wrap themselves about her heart, Damon had come to her and told her what she had dreamed of hearing for weeks past; that he was not going to marry Lady Frances.
The sudden transition from despair to elation had shaken her, but Lady Ormiston’s arrival had robbed her of the opportunity to talk to Damon about her situation, and her feelings were still in turmoil. She remembered Damon telling her that Lady Ormiston had been his mistress. It had been a brief affair, he had said, but he had not told her who had ended it. Now her own particular demons whispered that the lady was far too bewitching to be cast aside, that it must have been the lady who had ended the affair. Juliana had no illusions about Damon. He was too masculine not to be attracted by the lady’s luscious beauty. Juliana sighed. There was nothing she could do to mend matters, she told herself; she had best put aside these melancholy thoughts. She rose and went briskly to the breakfast room, where the children were coming to the end of their luncheon.
‘Ah, Miss Wrenn, such goings on as the children have been describing to me!’ Nurse greeted her with a shake of her head as she came in. ‘I was mortified when Gwen told me what that woman had said to Minna, and not a word of it true, as the master told her first and as I have been telling her since, for I was there when Mrs Collingham gave birth to my little poppet, and I know how happy she was about it. “Another girl,” she says to me. “A beautiful healthy little sister for Gwendoline.”’ Nurse wiped her eyes. ‘It was a few days later that my poor mistress caught the fever and died, and even then she bade me to take Minna away to the wet nurse rather than risk her becoming ill. “Nurse, you look after my little angels,” she says, and so I have, all these years, bless her memory.’
The children looked at one another and fidgeted uncomfortably at this display of emotion.
‘The Major is not going to marry Lady Frances,’ announced Amy.
Juliana sat down at the table. ‘So I understand,’ she said cautiously.
‘It is true.’ Wilhelmina nodded. ‘He sent us away, but Gwen and I listened at the door. He told her he was sorry, but it would not work, and it was fortunate there had been no announcement.’
‘You should not be eavesdropping, and you certainly should not be repeating anything you overheard,’ said Juliana, trying to look severe.
‘Well, under normal circumstances we would not do so,’ said Gwendoline. ‘But this was too important to miss. And we shall only tell you. Well, then there was a pretty kick-up—’
‘Gwendoline!’ gasped Nurse.
‘Thomas says it.’
‘Then he should reserve it for when he is in the stables,’ retorted Juliana, frowning at her little brother.
‘Very well, then,’ continued Gwen. ‘Lady Frances railed at Papa, saying he should send us to school to learn some manners, and how everyone knew they were to be married, and they would all say he had lost his senses—’
‘And Papa says, “No, madam, I have just found them,”’ growled Wilhelmina, and went off into a fit of giggles.
‘And then Lady Frances stormed out of the house.’
‘And Papa saw us in the hall, and he must have known we heard everything, but he never said a word about it.’ Wilhelmina’s cheeks grew flushed. ‘Instead he—he told us about Mama…’
‘I am very glad he did so.’ Juliana kissed her.
‘Now,’ said Nurse, rising from the table, ‘Plumstead came in earlier to tell us that the workmen have finished in the east wing, and we can go back to the schoolroom. Miss Wrenn, would you like something to eat before we leave the table?’
‘No, thank you. I am not hungry.’
‘You are a little pale.’ Nurse looked at her closely. ‘Are you sure you’re not sickening,
miss?’
Juliana tried to smile. ‘No, I am just—I feel a little faint. Perhaps I should take some air.’
‘Bless you, dearie, why didn’t you say so?’ declared Nurse. ‘You take a turn around the garden, miss; the children will come upstairs with me. Unless you would like me to come with you?’
‘No, I shall be quite well again in a moment.’
Juliana slipped out through one of the long windows on to the terrace. It was but a step from there to the shrubbery, where the gravel path was sufficiently well drained for her to walk without ruining her thin slippers. A few deep breaths calmed her and she could appreciate the warm sun on her skin, the soft breeze rustling through the bushes. She was not given long to enjoy her solitude. She heard the scrunch of footsteps on the gravel and turned to find Major Collingham striding towards her.
‘I saw you come out here. Are you unwell?’
‘No, not now.’
He held out his arm and with only the tiniest hesitation she took it.
‘An eventful day,’ he said.
She smiled at his understatement.
‘You are silent, Ju—do you not agree with me?’
‘I am still trying to organise my thoughts on all that has happened. But—if you are not to marry Lady Frances, what of your plans to improve Blackthorpe and provide for the children?’
‘Oh we shall come about.’ He squeezed her arm. ‘I am not exactly a pauper, you know.’
‘Of course not, but…’
‘But?’
‘You wanted to rebuild your fortune.’
He stopped and pulled her into his arms.
‘I already have my fortune here.’
He kissed her, and Juliana relaxed against him, admitting to herself for the first time how she had longed for this, to feel his arms about her, his mouth on hers, and to know that he was as free to give his love as she was to accept it. Her lips parted beneath his, and as his kiss became more urgent the liquid heat surged through her, pooling somewhere between her hips, which pressed against Damon of their own accord. All too soon the kiss ended. Damon threw up his head, listening.
More Than a Governess Page 18